The Machinist

The length's some actors go to prepare themselves for a role are often astonishing. Adrian Brody sold his apartment and car for The Piano; Heath Ledger spent a month in isolation for The Dark Knight; Edward Norton gained 35 pounds of muscle for American History X, and let's not even go bother going into all the things Robert De Niro has done over the years. But possibly the most shocking transformation was undertaken by Christian Bale for the psychological thriller The Machinist.

Directed by Brad Anderson (Broadwalk Empire & The Wire) and starring Christian Bale, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Aitana Sanchez-Gion and Michael Ironside, The Machinist was released in 2004. It follows chronic insomniac Trevor Reznik, who has not slept for a year. His weight has plummeted, and his mind constantly plays tricks on him. Due to his appearance and behaviour, his colleagues at the machine factory he works at have distanced themselves from him. The only 2 people he feels he can be himself around are an airport waitress named Maria (Sanchez Gijon) and a prostitute name Stevie (Leigh), whose feeling towards him are more than physical.

One day while at the factory, Trevor is distracted by a mysterious individual name Ivan (John Sharian), which results in an employee named Miller (Ironside) losing his arm. Wracked by guilt over the incident, Trevor begins to find cryptic messages around his apartment, predominantly a post-it note with an unfinished game of Hangman on his fridge. He also finds out nobody from work has ever heard of Ivan, and that he has never worked in the factory. Trevor confronts Ivan about this, but never receives an answer.

Bale lost 63 pounds for the movie.

As the film progress, we see Trevor's continuing descent into madness and paranoia. He become convinced that he is the focus of a conspiracy, and finally snaps when he himself nearly loses an arm at work, believing it to have been his co-workers' doing.

From that moment on, things go from bad to worse, with Trevor convincing himself that events have been set in motion with the sole purpose of driving him insane. His power is cut off as he has forgot to pay his utilities, a dark liquid which progressively resembles blood begins to leak out of the fridge, and when he gets hold of Ivan's License plate numbers in order to ascertain his address, he finds that the car was in fact registered to him a year ago.

The film is a first-rate exploration of the effects of everyday events on a withered and increasing fragile mind. We fell Trevor's pain, both physical and mental, and empathise with his increasing alienation. The film is so draped in darkness and misery that you would think it was directed by Tim Burton (but of course if it did he would have cast Johnny Depp!)

Bale is perfectly cast in this picture, not just because he exquisitely captures the haunted nature of his character, but because of his determination to appear every bit as wracked and worn as he feels. His weight dropped to 54kg, but said he would have gone down to 45, had he not been forbidden by the filmmakers due to health risks. On top of this, the decision to lose so much weight was Bale's own. Nobody made or even asked him to do it. Now THAT is dedication.

So, if you're a fan of movies with more than their share of dark touches, this is definitely for you. Overall it's just like a journey into a tortured psyche. Deep, intense and totally gripping.